1952 Practices.

*Patreon seems to be sticking people in one tier regardless of their choice. I’m in the process of sorting it out, so if you get stuck in the wrong tier let me know.*

I’m gonna start tonight by pointing at my patreon link. My Surface is starting to overheat regularly and I can’t get it to stop. So I’m gonna have to replace it sooner rather than later. Although no version of the various surface products is exactly what I need in the future. Regardless I haveto plan for the reality that this thing is going to fail eventually & I don’t want to get caught out.

Even I, who rarely gets political, lost patrons because of the most recent Patreon… Thing. I set up an alternate account on a different service for the people who could no longer agree with patreon’s actions, but that was a whole other thing. If memory serves they may have sorted out the issue, but I kind of forgot to finish it up because this all happened right around Xmas.

I suppose I should just explain the whole thing, because I know someone is going to ask. Honestly I’m afraid to talk about any of this stuff because I’ve been accused of being a Nazi for talking about it at all more than once. Since that’s the level of political discourse now.

Anyway, a dude named Carl Benjamin (Sargon Of Akkad) did an oopsie. It didn’t technically break patreon’s rules, but he got booted for it. I’m not going to explain the whole deal. You can do your own research. That’s more than enough info to start. Because of this a significant number of people very furious with Patreon & no longer wanted to support the platform. Most of my readers just want to read comics so I wasn’t hit nearly as hard as some people I know. There’s not a huge overlap in audiences between Sargon and I since I lean pretty left & the topics he cares about don’t get brought up in my work.

Here’s the problem though; Paypal pulled their service from the alternate platform that the Prexiteers chose to migrate to. Paypal is essentially the only game in town when it comes to online funds transfer. They own the biggest share of the market at any rate & they take a political stance rather than being a neutral party the way a bank would, for example. (although it might have also been mastercard/visa who caused that to happen. that’s a rabbit hole I’m not going down, but feel free to get as conspiratorial in your search as you want.)

Because of paypal getting involved a lot of people don’t want to use it either, so creators are double fucked at the moment when if comes to subscription services. I was raised not to treat political opponents as enemies, but rather as loyal opposition. Which is something that I always took as a given, but that is not how things work right now.

I tell you this much, if the comments turn into the shitshow here that they did on the patreon post I’ll delete this shit, all the comments, and we’ll speak of this no more. I expect civility & my site is not a republic. It’s a dictatorship. I just happen to be a generally benevolent despot. I didn’t spend over a fucking decade building my little world up all for it to be brought down by the fleeting zeitgeist of the current year. Keep it civil if you want to talk about this stuff. We’re all in this together, like it or not. If we can’t come to some sort of accord the only option it what? Murder in the streets? I won’t tolerate hooliganism I say!

I want to keep making comics & online ads are no longer enough to keep doing that. I have to point to Patreon from time to time in hopes that people want me to keep doing this.

I should mention that I made a tier on Patreon for people who don’t want to see any saucy images. A lot of people want saucy images and aren’t afraid to ask, but if you want to join team never nude I’ve given you the option.

63 Comments

Pssh…what a load of bullshit. First, he declares himself so kind of exemplar of personal standards, which he expects others to emulate. Then, when it’s pointed out that he’s carrying evidence at that very moment that he has the professional standards of a semi-competent stoned monkey, he blames the company for his lack of loyalty. Jesus, Thomas, either live up to your supposed standards or don’t. Don’t blame other for your lack of motivation. If he really believes in these virtues as he claims he did, than a lack of loyalty to the company should drive him to finding a new job, not a complete absence of genuinely professional behavior at the place he continues to choose to work at…

Except had you read the story at all, you’d know there isn’t really anywhere else for him to go. And for the matter, everything he said is exactly right. Companies don’t give a shit about you, me, or anyone else. All they care about is money. Why should you be loyal to a place that views you as a number, and nothing more?

I certainly wouldn’t, but I also don’t go around making grand declarations of others “rising to my standards” or act like I have some kind of moral superiority over others. If Thomas truly does have standards like he claims to, he would live up to them. Not for the sake of the company, but for his own satisfaction. And if he doesn’t do that, then his words are just empty posturing. True standards are ideals you aspire to live up to, regardless of circumstance. Him equivocating on them due to a “lack of loyalty” proves his so-called standards are bullshit.

He has a stance, but no incentive to act on it other than “his own satisfaction.” Which as anyone knows, when paired with five dollars, will get you a cup of coffee. Dignity and an empty sack, after all, is ultimately worth the sack.

The store itself cares so little that it provides no incentive to act on a stance other than the vague threat of unemployment. But from what we can tell so far, it cares so little about the operation that it won’t even bother firing.

People need incentives to succeed, otherwise there’s no reason to do so. “Your own satisfaction” can be derived from other sources.

In the end, it’s like the old communist-era saying: “I pretend to work, and they pretend to pay me.”

And if he just had principles he compromised on a bit, it wouldn’t be a problem. We’re all guilty of compromising and failing to live up to our principals. I don’t judge him for that. I do judge him for his moral posturing. As far as we’ve seen, he makes no effort to live up to any of these principals in any way. And when that’s your pattern of behavior, you don’t get to preach or pretend to possess some kind of moral superiority.

There’s also the fact that in this instance, Thomas is speaking from experience. He won a whole ton of “Employee of the Month” awards when he first started. But years of him seeing upper management send managers to his store to build cases for firing, and at least one instance of them sending people down to try and get the entire store fired (when John joined the crew) made him realize that they don’t care about any of their employees, and Thomas decided not to care right back. That being said, I don’t think Thomas’s little cause and effect here is exactly right. It might be true for him, John, and possibly Carol, but I’m pretty sure Nina doesn’t exactly share his philosophy on the matter exactly. She seems to try and do a good job despite the customers not caring, and gets upset because she can’t force the numbers HQ wants. Some of the other cast members who work at the store might also not share Thomas’s apathy, or at least, not share it as strongly (Ed and Jo come to mind). So while I wouldn’t say Thomas is wrong, I think he’s projecting a bit.

I have no issue with the logic of his arguments. But he’s not just making arguments. He’s actively preaching about principals which he openly compromises on in frequent, extremely obvious ways. And when it’s pointed out that he’s in no position to posture as he has been, he excuses it by saying it’s the company’s fault. Wes’ stance isn’t “your principals are wrong.” His stance is that Thomas, as a person who consistently and openly violates these principals, is not someone who is in a position to be lecturing anybody on the importance of his principals or posturing on the superiority of his character. You don’t get to preach if you a) consistently fail to follow your supposed principals, and b) blame others for your failure to do so. Being paid by the company requires him to be there. Whether he lives up to his personal standards and acts in a professional manner is up to him. And if he doesn’t, then whatever, that’s his business. But it does undermine his right to preach about his standards.

Except Wes didn’t point out that Thomas was violating any principals, he pointed out that he has a Gameboy, aka, a complete non-sequitur that in no way is even a rational response to anything Thomas says. Maybe my memory of the comic is fuzzy, but I don’t remember Thomas violating these principals the way you claim.

Please let me know Jackie, if I’m getting out of line, when I use the comments section.

For whatever the reason-

I have been known to rub people the wrong way, sometimes, without realizing it.

It could be-

1) sometimes its hard for me to see people hinting that I’m burning them up, when I’m online

or

2) I do , at times, gravitate to humor that can be kind of harsh, very risky, or kind of strange.

But please let me know if my comments are burning you up.

I mean- I don’t make comments to be a jerk, but if you think- that I’m being uncivil, or out-of-line, please let me know, and I’ll try to- correct my actions, and I’ll try not make your comments section an unpleasant place.

I have never seen a comment from you that struck me as “off”. I have enjoyed your perspectives, and comments that initiate thought, even if it is first (fracking) thing in the AM.
You keep being you. IMAO! You do it well.
Cheers!
Gene

You and me think similarly in a lot of ways, it seems. I live with my little sister, and like a lot of people nowadays she thinks in very black and white terms. If she doesn’t like something, that something is horrible and immoral and she can’t fathom why anyone would stand for it. While many things are legitimately evil, she unfortunately tends to lump a lot of gray areas in with them, and it’s a struggle to get her to not lash out when someone disagrees with her on something she’s black and white about.

There’s very little in the world that is absolute. The inherent morality of others certainly isn’t one of them, especially when it comes to matters of opinion, politics, or religion. I’ve always lived under the notion that I shouldn’t get to judge that someone is right or wrong unless they’re claiming something that is absolutely wrong (like a math question or a word definition, or something that happened in a piece of media). The other side of the coin is that I have enough self-respect and conviction to not be bothered if someone wants to judge me, and that often comes across as arrogant to the small-minded.

Evil begets evil. If you want to stand on a pedestal and declare yourself morally superior, you have to be willing to admit that you have no right to vilify others, to consider them an enemy for no reason beyond not sharing your views.

The whole thing is a mess, no doubt about that. It really shouldn’t be. For crying out loud, people have to eat. Making content is a thing, and people should try to get paid for that. Large businesses should NOT be using their market clout to interfere with that.

Its possible Patreon as caught in this mess as their creators are. If Paypal tells Patreon to drop a subscriber, especially after what they did to SubscribeStar (the Patreon alterbnative), what would Patreon really do but say “OK”? This same back-channel coercion could be the root of Patreon’s ham-fisted effort at limiting adult content last year. And Tumblr’s meltdown.

I don’t keep up on Patreon news and so forth, I just use it to support a few comickers like you, Jackie. Right or wrong, I’m not really concerned about what they’re doing so long as my money gets to you each month and I’m not charged incorrectly. Maybe I should be incensed about it for some reason, but so long as the *service* operates as described to me when I agreed to it, then I don’t really pay attention. For you it’s obviously important since it impacts your livelihood, but for us 9 to 5 schmoes that just want to go to work, get paid, and do our thing, including supporting people like you for some regular entertainment, I don’t have a problem. There’s already enough for me to be annoyed or upset with right now that I don’t need another Pitchfork Project*.

I’ll have to take a look at my Patreon account again to make sure it’s still functioning as I expect, and when I do I’ll see if I can bump my contribution up. As I recall though, there was only a $1.00 tier when I signed up, which was sometime last year.

Also, I still agree with Thomas even if he has his personal shortcomings. Leading by example is important, but picking out personal flaws in the speaker just so you can justify your own lack of effort and trash talk a solid principle is just petty. Whether the company properly appreciates the employees or not, if the job situation is so grim that even Wes will “stoop” to working there, then why not make the best of it? Being surly and causing unnecessary hardship for yourself and everyone else serves no purpose and only makes you feel worse, so why do it? Sometimes you just have to accept that the situation sucks, but that you don’t have to be a part of it. Do your job well and maybe, if it’s possible, build up your co-workers and you can improve the situation regardless of what management does or says. I think that’s one reason why I like Mike so much, because he doesn’t let a lack of corporate leadership prevent him from being a good manager, he just tries to do the job as best he can with what he has to work with and lets his work speak for itself. He’s still learning, but at least he’s making an effort, which is essentially what Thomas is talking about. Sure, building up is a lot harder than tearing down, but which would you rather have at the end of the day, a house you helped build, or a pile of rubble?

*”Get the torches and the pitchforks, folks! There’s a monster on the loose!”

Some customers are just asshole, even when the employees love their job. They want to take their pain out on others.

Then you can have bosses who care about the employees (or at least act it) and the employees take advantage of it.

At my current job, before the new crappy bosses known for the business plan of “buy company and run it with bare minimum employees” I had telling me how great it was, how they could just take off for the day and didn’t get fired.

When asked “What about the employees who had to cover for you.” the response, “It doesn’t matter, I could skip out on work.”

At another job an employee who missed a day of work every week. When the bosses asked him what was going on, why was he missing a day a week, his response was “Because I can’t survive on three days of work a week.”

In my experience, there’s just to many employees who don’t care about fellow workers or the job. If they don’t get fired, it brings down other employees, but those employees often have ways to cover themselves, like finding a doctor who will give them FMLA (Family and Medical Leave Act).

Nothing like people using that, to not only give themselves more free time, but help them keep welfare benefits.

Your comment says you tend to “lean left”, but I have to say, you and your commenters seem to be more accepting (or at least less derisive) of other viewpoints than most places on the internet. I hope this continues, and I wish you a healthy and prosperous new year.

Ok i mentioned webtoons before and i remember you asking what it was. I never bothered to answer because i figured you would look into at your leisure. I’ll answer now though so you can at least have a better idea of what it is and if it would interest you. Webtoons or the webtoons app is basically a hub for online comics that is really user friendly for the reader and better at reaching a wider audience. I’ve been reading hiveworks comics for years and i can definitely say that webtoons is a better experience. It also has a partnership with patreon HOWEVER besides ad revenue and patreon support if your webcomic becomes featured webtoons themselves basically take you on and pay you monthly to keep making your comic. They have a discover section which is filled with professionals and amateurs and if they get really popular on disover they will be approached about moving to webtoons and getting paid. It may not be perfect but i have already seen quite a few online comic makers start to switch to webtoons and it seems like a better way to get paid. However i haven’t published a comic on their so i can’t give any insight on what its actually like from an artists point of view. They actually have live people to talk to though so i feel like you should at least research it. You would have to change your format to scrolling down instead of the page deal you got but you have already made so many comics that going back and changing the format up a bit would give you such a huge buffer for posting. Idk man might be a way to get paid to still make your comic

The cure for bad speech is good counter-speech. If someone says something really bad, maybe you punish them for saying it. I do not approve of trying to preemptively strike at people and make sure they lose the ability to speak at all.

So Patreon, and now PayPal, have been party to “deplatforming” of some people for IMHO non-defensible reasons. It would take a lot before I would approve of a “deplatforming” and that level has not been reached in any of the cases I have heard about.

As a result of the above, I’m not happy with Patreon. However, Patreon is how I support this comic, and I am not pulling my support for this comic (or any of the other comics I support through Patreon).

At this point I am hoping to see an alternative to Patreon, one that will actually believe in free speech rights for everybody. If such an alternative does appear, and if I can get some of my favorite comics to take donations from it, I would switch my support away from Patreon in a heartbeat. I used to have a generally positive feeling for Patreon: “this is neat, I can support comics I like” But now I think “they have too much power and I fear what they might do with it.” That’s kind of a change.

It’s only an assumption that good counter speech cures bad speech. There’s plenty of evidence that bad speech exists and continues to exist no matter how thoroughly it is disproven or how good the counter speech.

It’s also not really a preemptive strike when someone has an extensive record of prior speech to look at and is doing more of the same.

would you approve of deplatforming if the platform determined that it was unprofitable (i.e. causing a loss of money) for them to continue supporting someone?

also, as usual, free speech isn’t really applicable here, because that’s about government restriction, not the restrictions imposed by private businesses.

Bad speech existing is not a problem. Bad speech leading to bad behavior is the problem. However, trying to stamp out unpopular opinions doesn’t work, short of Gestapo-level suppression and murder. Not just that, but even the good ideas will flounder if they are never challenged or fact-checked because no one is allowed to do so–what starts off as a great idea will drift into upside-down land if no one ever points out flaws or issues that arise. Furthermore, if the bad speech even has a small amount of truth to it, it still has value; we should learn from that small amount while disregarding the rest, but if we suppress the whole thing, we lose some of that truth.

Except there’s never been any evidence that platforms lose any notable amount of money for allowing different perspectives, while there is plenty that they lose some money when they do censor. Twitter is overwhelmingly liberal; it has always been so, even BEFORE they started purging many non-liberals. If bad speech drove off users, then why did it grow by leaps and bounds when it allowed bad speech, and start to stumble only after it stopped allowing bad speech?

Free speech is absolutely applicable here. The first amendment isn’t applicable, no, nothing illegal is happening. But the concept of, and value of, free speech applies in the private sphere as well.

bad speech existing is a problem because it leads to bad behavior. it’s disingenuous to make the distinction you did when it’s clearly a part of the causal chain.
nor do you have any basis to reach the conclusion that ideas would never be challenged or fact-checked; that’s simply you arguing in bad faith against a strawman opinion rather than my actual argument, don’t do that. indeed the entire point of some of the stamping out is to not allow discussion of ideas that have been thoroughly fact-checked and proven unequivocally wrong. It is well documented that some people will push narratives regardless of how thoroughly they are proven false.
there is no reason to assume something filled with half-truths that is designed to intentionally mislead people is actually helpful to understanding the truth. some things have negative value because they cause people to have beliefs that are provably false.

as to the finances; it’s an interesting question of fact. but you shouldn’t assume the causation is the reason you think it is without more thoroughly considering other options. first, how accurate is our actual data on twitter’s finances? second, maybe the growing partisanship made it impossible to simultaneously serve disparate groups that was previously feasible. that’s another hypothesis that could explain it.
I note you didn’t answer the actual stated hypothetical either; you should do so for proper arguing.

“bad speech existing is a problem because it leads to bad behavior.”
This implies all bad speech leads to bad behavior. This is not true. Nor is all bad behavior from bad speech (not that you said that, just making it clear).

“nor do you have any basis to reach the conclusion that ideas would never be challenged or fact-checked; that’s simply you arguing in bad faith against a strawman opinion rather than my actual argument, don’t do that”
If you prevent criticism of your ideas, your ideas will fall apart, unless you think you are perfect.

” indeed the entire point of some of the stamping out is to not allow discussion of ideas that have been thoroughly fact-checked and proven unequivocally wrong”
By people who whose ideas have also been thoroughly fact-checked and proven unequivocally wrong, but because they have power, they get to perpetuate their nonsense without challenge. This is the problem; we are all wrong in part, so no one should have the power to impose their wrongness on others.

“there is no reason to assume something filled with half-truths that is designed to intentionally mislead people is actually helpful to understanding the truth.”
Yes, there is. Unless you think you are right about everything, then you admit that you are wrong about some things. And you don’t know which things you are wrong about, because if you did, you would change your beliefs to fit those facts. So there is truth out there; you don’t know where, you don’t know how, but it’s there, and the only way to learn it is to be exposed to it. But if you prevent speech that challenges you, you will bury that truth while attempting to bury the fiction.

“second, maybe the growing partisanship made it impossible to simultaneously serve disparate groups that was previously feasible”
I don’t even know what that means in context. Like, a newspaper can never please everyone; someone will always think it’s propaganda for this or that side. But Twitter is social media; people simply follow and talk to people they like and agree with. There’s no built-in limitation to how many people you can cater to when all you do is provide a space for them to speak to others who agree with them, unless you physically run out of space.

“I note you didn’t answer the actual stated hypothetical either; you should do so for proper arguing.”
First off, no, I don’t have to. You made numerous points, I responded to numerous points, there is nothing saying I had to respond to THIS particular point. Second, proper arguing doesn’t involve you lecturing me and accusing me of bad faith after I make one single post, one where I never say anything negative about you personally. If I did so, repeatedly, I would understand, but this was unnecessary. But I will go ahead and respond to your hypothetical by asking for more details; how could they determine this exactly?

please, don’t bother replying to me anymore.
you continue to argue in bad faith and attack strawman rather than my actual position, as evidenced by your false insistence that my stance is one that opposes legitimate criticism. nor do you have an actual decent understanding of the issue or how to conduct actual rigorous thought.

you are on the side of those that would deny the existence of the holocaust. There is no value gained from holocaust deniers; you claim there is. I see none, and I see no reason to discuss further with someone who would endorser listening to the holocaust deniers.

Recall that private businesses are still regulated in various ways; many, many ways actually.

For instance, if memory serves, the phone companies and banks can’t deny you an account because of your political views. Nothing impossible about similar regulations for social media, payment processors or credit card companies.

True, but keep in mind the flip side of that coin; if government is permitted to force you to be open to all views, it could also force you to discriminate. Imagine if the government decided to legally prohibit any “hate group” from opening a bank account or using social media, with “hate group” being a vague term politicians can easily twist to mean whatever they want.

zlefin: “It’s only an assumption that good counter speech cures bad speech.”

I never said that bad speech could be perfectly cured. We live in an imperfect world.

However, what I’m trying to get it is summed up with an old saying: “I disapprove of what you are saying, but I will defend your right to say it.” The modern “deplatforming” idea is the opposite: “I disapprove of what you are saying, so I am going to try to keep you from ever saying anything ever again, and hurt you in the pocketbook as much as I can to keep you from finding a new platform.”

zlefin: “It’s also not really a preemptive strike when someone has an extensive record of prior speech to look at and is doing more of the same.”

But who is to judge? There is speech that I approve of that some people disapprove of. I’ll bet you there is speech you approve of that some people disapprove of. Suppose the political pendulum swings, and the people who don’t like your ideas get enough power to start “deplatforming”. If you approve of it against the ideas you don’t like, where is your moral argument against it being done against ideas you do like?

Before approving of any thing, imagine if people you hate and fear had the power to do that thing. Simple self-interest ought to make you careful, even if in the short term the power is all on your side.

zlefin: “would you approve of deplatforming if the platform determined that it was unprofitable (i.e. causing a loss of money) for them to continue supporting someone?”

Politically, I’m what’s called a “libertarian” so I’m always in favor of maximum liberty. I don’t like “deplatforming” but I’m not going to try to force platforms to host anyone. I also do not support forcing a cake shop to make a cake that the shop doesn’t want to make.

zlefin: “also, as usual, free speech isn’t really applicable here, because that’s about government restriction, not the restrictions imposed by private businesses.”

Here’s the thing. A lot of platforms are theoretically even-handed and neutral, and thus cannot be held responsible for the content they host. However, some platforms seem to favor one kind of content over another kind. They are free to do that, but after having done that they will be judged for the choices they made.

Tim Pool said that Patreon banned that “Sargon of Akkad” guy because he used a bad word… but a simple search finds that lots of people who remain unbanned have used similar bad words. That makes it appear that the real reason he was banned was because Patreon didn’t like his political views. That, IMHO, is playing with fire. If they make a pattern out of it, then someone who feels badly treated may start looking for ways to get them. And I don’t mean argue with them, I mean find a pretext to sue them, or impose government regulations on them, or even worse.

my stances aren’t based on whether I “like” speech, but whether it causes real world harm; or lies and misrepresents the state of the world. I don’t approve of it because i “dislike” ideas, but because they objectively cause harm and/or lie (and cause harm via actions being taken based on those lies). I’m staunchly in favor of the truth. The actual, very rigorously determined, truth. my moral argument if it’s done against ideas I like would be that it’s being done to oppose truth, since ideas I like and the truth very heavily overlap (and I’m really a stickler about it).

There certainly is merit in allowing a lot of leeway in regards to speech; but there can and do exist limits. The only question is wherein those limits lie. And there’s an ever-growing body of research that shows the downsides of having very few limitations on speech, there’s a number of ways it can be abused that cause harm to the system, by actors both within it and without. What the most socially optimal policies are for a given society is far from clear, but it’s certainly possible that some additional restrictions would be warranted; and as with many things it’s common to oscillate an go too far one way or the other. the economic changes wrought by the internet in particular have resulted in a substantial lowering of standards.

I do’nt know about the validity of the charge against this actual Sargon person; I know that amongst his ilk there’s a lot of bad actors (though there’s a lot of bad actors on all sides, who I would gladly toss because they don’t actually help anything). I’m in general favor of higher standards, like used to be found in the better newspapers. As a result, most any charge of poor standards by writers on any side I would tend to agree with, just because my own standards are so high that few reach them.
imposing government regulations on the platforms doesn’t sound like an inherent bad to me; it could be bad, or it could be good, depending on the regulation. If the goal is content neutral platforms, then government regulation to ensure that happens might be a good thing. I’m sure Patreon has thought carefully about the impact their actions will have in terms of responses that coul dbe lawsuits or government regulations; simply because businesses in general are careful about that; the problem for them is that they’re stuck between multiple different sides who would regulate them for different reasons, and they’re trying to navigate that. i.e. there’s one group that would regulate them for being too political one way, while there’s another group that would regulate them fro being too political the toehr way and not taking action against problem people.

All this reminds me of another complication: the divergence between social standards in government, and in the corporate world (i.e. the note that corporations tend to be more socially liberal than the government, at least in the U). Which is an outgrowth of the fact that businesses focus on money/profit; thus they’re focused on their costs, which are primarily their employees, and their sales, which trend heavily towards those with disposable income (25-54-ish); whereas the government focuses on those who vote, which skews markedly older. Thus the social standards are different because business and government are somewhat catering to different groups

A last query: do you believe holocaust deniers should be deplatformed?

PS I’m not likely to respond to this anymore as the convo is on an old comic.
PPS off-topic, but there’s a very nice book by Achen and Bartels on problems with democracy and voting. it’s a great read for the politically-inclined.

“my stances aren’t based on whether I “like” speech, but whether it causes real world harm; or lies and misrepresents the state of the world.”

We have these things called “courts” where, if someone does you real world harm, you sue the person and get redress. So there’s no need to deplatform anyone.

But wait… maybe you mean “harm” like “it might make someone really upset and it’s beyond what is acceptable.” The problem with that standard is: who judges what is acceptable? I favor a very liberal interpretation of “free speech”, which sadly means that some real jerks get to have free speech. That’s part of the price of freedom but I think it’s better than the alternative.

Suppose your worst enemies gain the upper hand. Total “Handmaid’s Tale” with deeply conservative fundamentalist religious people in charge. They might deplatform anyone arguing in favor of queer rights, trans rights, etc. because of their sincere, deeply held beliefs that such ideas are “harmful”. I would be opposed to that, of course.

“I’m staunchly in favor of the truth. The actual, very rigorously determined, truth.”

I hate to break it to you, but even in the face of facts there are still interpretations. Two people can look at the same facts and come to opposed conclusions.

Suppose those “Handmaid’s Tale” guys cited the statistics on suicide among trans people to justify deplatforming advocates for trans people. They might argue it’s much better to apply some sort of “conversion therapy” and “cure” the trans folks, and cite some study that shows less suicides from such an approach. They might tell you that they are staunchly in favor of rigorously defined truth. They might even tell you “the science is settled” and the debate is over, and the debate is harmful.

“I do’nt know about the validity of the charge against this actual Sargon person; I know that amongst his ilk there’s a lot of bad actors (though there’s a lot of bad actors on all sides, who I would gladly toss because they don’t actually help anything).”

Seems pretty cut and dried to me. Sargon got in trouble for using a bad word, not even on Patreon. Someone did a web search and found other people using the same bad word, on Patreon, and those other people weren’t banned. To me that says “double standards” and I hate double standards.

You and I aren’t going to agree, I suspect, but thank you for a civil conversation.

It’s weird how these Internet dramas seem to catch the artists in the middle and create havoc often.

I was not surprised with what happened on Patreon. Technically, there are mirrors of it happening everywhere. Just before that, we had the Tumblr-pocalypse. Apple noticed people were accessing the Tumblr app on mobile devices and looking at hentai/porn. Apple has a very strict stance of not allowing apps to connect you directly to any kind of porn on iPhones (although looking at porn via a Safari is okay … w/e). Tumblr was making money via the Apple iTunes store for other services, and Apple threatened to shut all that down if they didn’t create a wall to block the porn from casual viewers. Well, Tumblr didn’t want to build that wall, and instead started deleting artists’ pages on the site who had pornographic material. So artists bailed and went to Pixiv and Twitter (who does have a method of blocking porn until you consent to see it).

HOWEVER

Now Paypal is telling Twitter that it if it doesn’t get rid of pornographic material off their site, they are going to stop processing on other Twitter owned apps. Twitter went out and hit up like 20 web payment companies (including mine). I thought, “Well, heck. This is an easy win for my company,” but then I found out all 20 companies said “Nope, not unless you get rid of your pornographic artists, first.” So I looked into why all these companies (including Paypal and Apple) are doing this.

It all leads to money. Money made from religious groups who use their services threatening to boycott them if they don’t bend over and help “clean up” the Internet.

I see the “moral” bandwagon picking up speed to get rid of drawn and real life porn on the Internet. This is a disaster for free speech and artists on the net.

I somehow doubt it’s only religious groups. There’s a growing anti-sex perspective in the more secular community too, who argue that it’s harmful to women to see or illustrate sex, or even scantily-clad women.

Would ko-fi be a viable alternative? Or is splitting your paying readers between different services cause an increase in the amount those combined payment services skim the top of the amount they each handle?

But I wonder if one, big reason it’s being done, is because- Tumblr + Paypal are not running their companies in just-The USA, the Americas, and Western Europe, but these two companies are doing business with EVERY PLACE in the world.

If you look at wikipedia’s article on pornography, and see the article’s section on [pornography by region]- There are large swaths of Eastern Europe, Africa, and the Middle East, where pornography of every kind…is against the law.
[All types of porn] are 100% illegal in some countries, and not just the porn in some R-rated, US films.

To some governments + nations- Lady Chatterly’s Lover (sp?)…the novel, and ancient Greek vases with naked people on them, are pornography and these artworks are illegal in those places.

So, maybe- instead of Tumblr’s staff, and Paypal’s staff, trying to police their sites, and keeping illegal…adult images, and illegal porn images, from being sent to [millions?] of sites,…… in OVER 190 NATIONS,……for ease of business, and to try to keep most of their customers, and some governments, happy- maybe Tumblr and Paypal and etc. have decided to: outlaw/ban all adult images + adult content, ban all possibly…questionable nude images, and ban all pornographic images, from their sites.

I don’t like that these companies are doing this type of censorship, but I’m guessing- that these companies are trying: to keep all governments doing business [with these companies], and these companies are trying to keep [literally billions] of internet users happy.

I’m not trying to be pro or against pornography, here, but these are just my thoughts on this matter.
[ And...yeah...once I get my views on censorship straightened out, I will try to learn what this "grammar" thing is]. :)

It’s a fair question. But I think if you looked at the breakdown, you would find that those countries that are extremely harsh on adult content are a very small percentage compared to the major economies (except China, not sure what their laws are, but big market). You could also look and see that many of those countries love their porn, so cutting out porn is going to lose them money from those civilians, regardless of what the authorities think in those nations. And there’s the difficulty in enforcing these rules; there is a reason online platforms are legally protected against liability for illegal things that happen on their platforms, and that’s because it’s nearly impossible to monitor it all. Which brings me to another possible motivation; they want to change that law. They claim it’s to help prevent people from pimping kids on Craigslist and the like, but it would ultimately mean that if a terrorist posted something on Facebook, Facebook could be fined and sued for it, which would mean every company would have to become effectively an arm of the government and screen every single thing ever uploaded or said on their platforms. So these outfits might be trying to prevent that by voluntarily complying with the wishes of the power-abusing narcissists in office, which at least prevents the possibility of criminal charges.

Unfortunately, in my opinion- a nation’s laws, including its protect-your-site-from-liability laws, can change from one year to another.

For example- alcoholic drinks had been legal in the US, until the Prohibition Law was passed.
What happens to a brewery-business, or to a website-business, if a nation changes its laws, and says that, tomorrow, it will be legal, [for that nation], to sue your company…for the actions, that you have legally done for years?

I do not like it, but- most sites like Tumblr [R] will probably have to become like your local, physically built, pornographic-books shop:
in order to do business with that shop, or site, you will probably have to 1) show a legal ID to prove that you are of adult age, and/or 2) in order to look at, or buy, nude/adult art- you will have to pay to get into the [ adults only ] area of that site.

IMO, although it can make some of my friends sad- some private businesses have to decide to regulate [the freedoms of expression] that are done in that business or site, in order to stay in business.

Just wanted to let you know that you were the person I literally opened my patreon account for, I’ve supported you for years. I also watch some of sargon’s stuff–i watch a lot of different channels as I like to have a nuanced view of what’s going on in the world, and I find his opinions interesting, even though I don’t always/frequently agree. I think patreon dealt a really low blow banning him, and I would love to pull my support from them, but i care more about the people I support, rather than patreon itself. I’ve been trying to swap people over, if they have different methods of payment, but you won’t lose me simply because you’re on a platform I detest. Your comic brings a smile to my face frequently, and you deserve the support, even if it means throwing some money at a garbage company like patreon.

Thomas understands the nitty gritty of the the retail cycle. Its tough but, people need to be able to see both sides of the field. Unfortunately, we are conditioned to build walls and block others from looking in. Yet this also prevents us from looking out